The National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, adopted a legislative project on Tuesday that would protect the right to abortion by amending the French Constitution, Euractiv reports.

All left-wing MPs and almost all members of Renaissance, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, voted for the legislative draft, which was passed by an overwhelming majority. Among the “Republicans”, the traditional right-wing party of France, 40 deputies voted for the project, 15 were against and 4 abstained.

As for the right-wing radical party “National Union” led by Marine Le Pen, 46 of its deputies voted for the project, 12 spoke against it and 14 abstained.

In total, the project was adopted by 493 votes “for”, 30 “against” and 23 abstentions.

“Tonight, the National Assembly and the government did not miss a meeting with women’s history,” French Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said after the vote.

“This victory sounds like a victory over the shame, secrecy, silence, suffering and death that hundreds of thousands of women have had to face,” said MP Mathilde Panot of La France Insoumise, the radical left party founded by Jean-Luc. Melanchon.

Some people’s deputies who opposed the draft law expressed concern about the observance of the right of conscience of doctors who refuse to perform abortions.

France wants to guarantee the right to abortion in the Constitution after repealing the protection in the US

The text will now go to the French Senate, the upper house of parliament, which has scheduled a vote on it on February 28. If it is also accepted, which appears to be a mere formality given how the parties position themselves on the issue, it will be sent to President Emmanuel Macron for promulgation.

This, in turn, would be a formality, given that it was Macron who announced at the end of October last year that a draft of the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion would be presented to the government by the end of the year.

The French head of state first promised a legislative project on the topic on March 8, International Women’s Rights Day, in response to concerns raised by the US Supreme Court’s repeal of constitutional protections for abortion in all US states.

In France, the right to abortion (the voluntary termination of pregnancy) has now been recognized as common law since 1975, and enshrining it in constitutional law would make it difficult for any future attempts by lawmakers to repeal or seriously undermine it, according to its defenders. .

A poll conducted in November 2022 showed that almost nine out of ten French people (86%) at that time favored the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution.